The tabloid media seem not to care much for truth but appeal too often to the lowest common denominator - the "Whoa" factor. As in "WHOA! What the hell is that?" And because something looks so impressive on the surface, some people seem fine with embracing naiveté and calling it "alien" or "a monster" or "genuinely incredible". I hate to say they need to expand their assessment a bit more.

Two stories this week that were popular on my website, Doubtful News, were the clearly fake photo of a giant crab, dubbed "Crabzilla" and the capture of a basket star animal (related to star fish) that was labeled "alien" from the sea.

Both stories were reported as "news" on several news websites. Most of these sites were tabloids known for their sensational content, like The Daily Mail and The Express (both U.K.).

Can no one Google? I mean, can the reporters not Google? Will so few apply a modicum of critical thinking to these pieces and conclude in 20 seconds that Crabzilla is fake and the alien mutant octopus is a native species? Yes, indeed, so few actually do.

On Doubtful News, we keep a list of sites that are "beyond doubtful". It's our "no-go-to" list: Doubtful News’ “Beyond Doubtful” list of no-go-to sources. These sites, loosely measured, publish pure fiction or utter rubbish more than half the time, so we don't want to even publicize them as "news".

Included on the NO list -

Daily Mail (U.K.)

The Sun (U.K.)

Examiner.com

Bubblews

Siberian Times

Pravda.ru

Mother Nature News

Epoch Times

Natural News (Mike Adams, “Health Ranger”)

Before It’s News

Info Wars / Prison Planet (Alex Jones)

Mercola.com (Joe Mercola)

CryptozoologyNews.com

News-hound

Topekasnews.com

The Canadian (agoracosmopolitan.com/new)

All News Web

World News Daily Report

World Net Daily (WND.com)

National Report

Empire News (empirenews.net)

Sure, everyone knows The Onion and not many fall for similar satire sites (though some foreign countries and politicians do because it suits their zany agendas), but not enough people browsing social media engage their BS detection filter and say "pffth" to these incredible stories. Instead, they click "share" and engage the "whoa-ing" or "WTF?-ing".

It usually takes me about a half hour to pretty handily destroy lame stories from tabloids. I'm hardly trying yet it's easily accomplished. It's not my goal to debunk but, as they say, if there is bunk there, the debunking takes care of itself via checking the facts. The story falls apart.

A crab can not grow to be 50 feet, would not be visible in an aerial photo like this and there are no other people around having a look-see. Besides that, it was a simple feat to find the Bing Maps original to find no crab there.

With the story of the fisherman discovering the basket star, he may have been really surprised and not familiar with the creature. Fisherman and hunters actually do not know every native animal around and are rarely well-versed in the diversity of life that is abundant. Instead, their ignorance is used to assume "Since I don't know what this is, no one must know and it's brand new." This particular "medusa's head" basket star has been known from 1758. I think that more people perhaps should have had Wildlife Treasury cards and watched The Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau when they were growing up.

The world is wonderful on its own. We don't have to make up nonsense to make it interesting. But, that's actually a business model these days.

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SWIFTis named after Jonathan Swift, the author of Gulliver's Travels. In the book, Gulliver encounters among other things a floating island inhabited by spaced-out scientists and philosophers who hardly deal with reality. Swift was among the first to launch well-designed critiques against the flummery - political, philosophical, and scientific - of his time, a tradition that we hope to maintain at The James Randi Foundation.